an eudæmonist

in the weeds

Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy is a book that invites background reading, both in terms of books that Burton himself might have encountered and supplemental reading to loosen the knots an unsuspecting reader might tangle themselves when reading unforewarned. Obviously, the best thing to do to read Burton is to read Burton, but sometimes one just wants to know a bit more, and the books below are a decent start. They are also evidence of my long-standing passion for interlibrary loan, because – with the exception of Jackson’s book and the DSM-5-TR – all were books I borrowed through the local library via interlibrary loan. Praise be to interlibrary loan – long may it prosper.

• The reader who is only generally interested in Burton will find Mary Ann Lund’s A User’s Guide to Melancholy (Cambridge: CUP, 2021) and Melancholy, Medicine and Religion in Early Modern England: Reading The Anatomy of Melancholy (Cambridge: CUP, 2010) to be very user-friendly introductions to a somewhat tangled text. The former is perhaps a bit popular in spirit, but is clear about its limitations; the latter is particularly interesting on the notion of engagement with the Anatomy as a therapeutic experience.
• Angus Gowland’s The Worlds of Renaissance Melancholy: Robert Burton in Context (Cambridge: CUP, 2006) provides a very clear overview of Burton’s context, primarily in the political and intellectual sense. The reference list is also helpful, although the citations are not.
• I’ve found two books particularly helpful about clinical approaches to melancholy: Stanley W. Jackson’s Melancholia and Depression: From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1986) and Jennifer Radden’s Moody Minds Distempered: Essays on Melancholy and Depression (Oxford: OUP, 2009). Jackson’s book, though a bit out of date at this point (there are have been a lot of developments in medication that, obviously, aren’t covered), is a great historical overview of melancholia, depression, manic-depression, and nosology in general. If there is one book that provides essential grounding for just jumping into Burton’s text, Jackson’s book would be it. Radden’s collection of essays is also quite interesting and helps to bring things a bit more up to date; there are good sections on Burton and Freud that might be more amusing than actually fruitful for reading Burton, but, well, they are amusing, which is sometimes all one can ask of melancholy. 1
• Finally, The History of the University of Oxford: Volume IV – Seventeenth-Century Oxford, edited by Nicholas Tyacke, provides some useful context to the reading of Burton, notably in terms of academic politics and practices, as well as developments (structural, social, financial, architectural) within the university. The chapter on ‘Medicine’ by Robert G. Frank was particularly helpful for situating Burton within the broader development of medicine as a discipline during the period. 2

I am also finding that reading the DSM-5-TR is illuminating for understanding Burton, not least because Burton would include so many of the diagnostic criteria for a wide range of mood disorders under the heading of melancholy. In many ways, the two books share quite a similar ethos – the desire to categorize and delimit the boundaries of well and ill mental functioning – although they take somewhat distinct (but perhaps not ultimately dissimilar) approaches. Certainly Burton includes more citations.

1. Her book that focuses more particularly on Burton is one I hope to get to soon-ish.[↩]
2. I look forward to reading Frank’s book on Harvey and Boyle at some future date – probably when I’ve cleared out my interlibrary loan queue.[↩]